11 



been permitted us to know, pervades the whole of creation ; 

 more in accordance with the stability of the order of nature, 

 and with the cumulative evidence of countless analogies, to 

 believe, so long as the human intellect shall remain such as 

 it is, pleased with research, and delighted with discovery, 

 that to the remotest ages of our kind, new truths and novel 

 relations shall be presented with the same exhaustless pro- 

 fusion as they are now ; and, as the cataract ever thunders 

 down, and the mighty currents of the ocean roll onward 

 with power undiminished, so may we not from analogy 

 infer, that the currents of the intellect shall never become 

 stagnant, or the springs of the mind exhausted ? Let 

 not any one then, who pursues knowledge for its own 

 sake, despair or be doubtful of ultimate success ; for though 

 it may be that, pursuing an untrodden path, he shall 

 arrive at last at some well known and beaten track, yet 

 the chances are quite as much — nay far more ■ — in his 

 favour, that he shall at length reach some unexplored 

 region of undiscovered truth. 



" There is yet another respect in which associations of men 

 of science may be, and have been found useful. It is only by 

 means of the united influence of many, often individually 

 insignificant, but powerful in their combination, that the 

 Government of this country can be induced to take those 

 steps, which a Government only can take, for the promotion 

 of science. In proof of this assertion, I may refer to the fact, 

 that it is to the representations of the leading scientific 

 bodies in this country and in France, that we owe the com- 

 pletion of that very laborious and difficult task, the exact 

 determination of the length of an arc of the meridian ; the 

 measurement of which has been effected with the utmost 

 precision, not only in Europe, but amid the inhospitable 

 wilds of America and Asia. Owing to the influence of such 

 societies, have maritime expeditions for the purposes of dis- 



